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four old ladies in spain

My three sisters and I, all 60ish but in good shape, plan to visit Seville, Spain for a week to 10 days in October. I'm the travel planner, and I thought it would be nice to keep Seville as our base, but take a road trip to Lisbon and stay one night mid-week, plus take a day trip by bus and ferry to Tangier. Is this too much to try to include?

Thank you both. After I wrote my post, I read some others (a it backwards, I know), and I kind of gathered that might be the case. I prefer to really get to know a place rather than popping in and out, so I'll take your advice.

Robert - how is your comment helpful to the OP? Seems to me she is in the middle of planning a trip and doing her research - asking questions here on Fodors is part that. Isn't that what the forum is for?

Plenty of options for great daytrips from Sevilla to for example Ronda (with the gorge and spectacular landscapes), Cordoba (once the most advanced city in the western world), Jerez de la Frontera (famous for sherry (Jerez), flamenco and horses), Cádiz (3000 year old Gadir by the sea and fabulous seafood), Antequera (the first of the Granada emirate towns to fall to the Christians in 1410 and as genuinly Andalucia as it gets. Plaza de los Escribanos is my favourite spot in all of Spain.) and Carmona just outside Sevilla (the Roman gates still stand).

I agree with the recommendation to use your library to look over some guidebooks before buying any, because different guidebooks serve different purposes. And guidebooks will cover things you never even thought to ask....

We might be going to Rota and I have been looking at Cádiz. Just beautiful. I think a trip with your sisters will be great. Are you looking at an apartment or hotels in Seville? Planning a trip is fun if you can get everyone on the same page. I have a trip coming up with just my gfs and we all live in different states so we find things and email back and forth. One year eight of us went to Italy and we did a private facebook group and posted all the info. We picked four apartments/ linked them to facebook and voted. Same for tours and hotels for other places we went. I did a cooking class by myself and it was good to be on my own. They loved shopping and I am not a huge shopper. Have fun planning and am very interested in what you decide. The train system? I think is good.

Yes, Rota has a major naval station (Spain and the US), and has been active since the mid-50's, but it also has a great beach, and is close to Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María. Rota itself is considered a resort town with a long history, dating back to the Phoenicians.

I like to do day trips, it's much less hectic, also. I have gone to other countries for the day, also, but they were only an hour or two away, of course. So I think visiting Lisbon for a day would have been fine IF it weren't so far away, that's all. Now I don't know that route, if it were really scenic, even that wouldn't be that bad. It's only about 4.5 hours by road. But for a big city like that, having a car for a day trip isn't what I choose -- I do train or bus for day trips to big cities. Cars are better for more rural areas where you can easily park, or smaller towns/cities. And unfortunately, there isn't a good train/bus route from Seville to Lisbon, it takes 8 hours that way.

So I agree with dropping that and Tangiers, also. There are so many places to see in Andalucia. But for 10 days, I could see adding another major city in another part of Spain that works out well for the flight home, for example -- which would probably be Madrid -- and is easy to get to from Seville. There are often good flights from Barcelona, also, but it's not as easy to get to from Seville, at least not by train.